Arts and culture picks for the rest of your Seattle summer

Sorry to break the news, but we are halfway through summer. That’s all the more reason to get out and see what's happening in our community.

There are a few ongoing events in the Seattle area that will carry through the rest of the season. We turn to Crosscut’s arts and culture editor Brangien Davis for some recommendations.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Seattle Deconstructed Art Fair

The big Seattle Art Fair was cancelled last year, so all the local galleries scrambled together to create their own art fair. It's deconstructed because it's not all in one place. It's basically just encouraging folks to get out there and go to local galleries.

This year, there are more than 40 galleries involved, stretching from the Georgetown neighborhood to Skagit Valley. One of the things that surprised me was at CORE Gallery in Pioneer Square. A local artist who goes by the name GirlSpit does these incredibly intricate X-Acto knife paper cuts of Seattle roadmaps over time. She has one from the 1800s. It's just really cool.

Secret Seattle: An Illustrated Guide to the City's Offbeat and Overlooked History

In the vein of walking around the city and getting back out there, Susanna Ryan wrote the Seattle Walk Report, a book that came out in 2019. She's a local librarian. She walks, and takes takes notes on everything she sees. Then she turns them into these great comic strips. She has a great sense of humor.

She has a new book out called Secret Seattle: An Illustrated Guide to the City's Offbeat and Overlooked History. It’s a guide to parts of the city that you see every day, that maybe you wonder about, but never actually bother to look up. It's just fascinating.

Land Buoy Bells

That’s a mysterious name for the first art installation on the new Seattle Waterfront, at Pier 62. It’s by musician and installation artist Stephen Vitiello. They look like giant frying pans standing up on their handles. They’re made of the bottoms of stainless steel tanks. Underneath, where you can't see, is a mechanical part that takes the energy from the waves of Puget Sound and turns it into a clanging sound that sounds very nautical, very Seattle-sounding.

It's on a floating dock, so the dock is gently moving up and down as well. Every time a ferry goes by the waves come in and it makes these great clanging sounds. The official dedication is today. Go down there anytime you're on the waterfront and check it out. It's really cool.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.